Discussion: On Speedrunning

[ilovenons]

Hello everyone!

Over time, Minr’s speedrunning rules have been criticised quite a bit. As someone who has spent years speedrunning and still dabbles in it, I have seen how difficult it is to navigate these rules. Many maps rely on informal “gentleman’s agreements” rather than clear guidelines. For example, it was (and still is) okay to use setups in runs on Pixi’s Carnival Games and Pocketz Stadium, but not on most newer maps. This inconsistency makes speedrunning unnecessarily confusing and discouraging when speedrunning is meant to just be for fun.

To be perfectly transparent, most of the Minr staff team are not avid speedrunners. I would say that speedrunning is somewhat of a niche thing in the Minr community, and so it can be hard for us to all be familiar with all the frustrations and complications. As such, it felt weird to discuss rules on speedrunning behind closed doors. We might fail to consider something, or someone in the community might have a great idea on how to approach some of the rules. The purpose of this thread is simply to see what the community thinks and can agree on.

This thread is intended as an unstructured, open discussion on Minr’s speedrunning rules and culture. Despite being unstructured, I have outlined several topics below and added some additional context to each to get the thread started. Feel free to focus on just one. If you have any other appropriate topics or questions that you think would be worth discussing, do not be afraid to bring those up! Input from map creators is also greatly appreciated, even if you do not speedrun. You are also fine to mention any criticism you have with Minr’s handling of the current speedrunning rules.

1. Should setting up maps be allowed?
This is one of the most popular topics that has been discussed before. See this thread for a previous discussion on the topic (greenies only). A rough lower bound of how many existing maps that people use setups on is around 40.

2. Performing a yeroc% in a speedrun
For those unaware, a yeroc% is triggering a delayed teleport in a map, rejoining the map, and getting teleported further in with your time reset. They are currently not allowed, but like setups, some map leaderboards still use yeroc% in their runs.

3. To what extent should map creators be able to alter their map after it gets put in FFA?
This is a big one that does not relate to just speedrunning. As a map creator, it can be frustrating to see a map have a large portion of its gameplay skipped. On the other hand, as a speedrunner, it can be equally frustrating to spend a lot of time setting a solid time on a map, just for it to be removed because the map creator decided to patch one of the skips.

4. What severity or kind of skips should be allowed?
This topic has a lot of overlap with the previous topic. It is not just speedruns that use skips, as challenges use them too. There is a spectrum between skips that are more difficult than the main path and only save time (“speedrunner skips”), versus skips that make the map easier and also save time. Currently, skips that make a map easier and those that use map escapes should be reported to the map creator or staff, but where should Minr draw the line?

5. What should Minr do if Minecraft changes a mechanic that alters a map’s top times?
As you may know, Minecraft parkour changes all the time, and speedruns change as a consequence. Think of the recent slime change, for example. Because of this change, some maps had their #1 times improved, but some also became way harder or impossible to beat. Currently, times that become impossible to beat are usually cleared.

6. Free space!
Again, please feel free to bring up anything else related to speedrunning. Criticism of how Minr has approached speedrunning, issues with the current speedrunning culture, ideas you have that might help speedrunning overall, rules on multiplayer speedrunning, macros in speedrunning, etc.

There are a lot of possible topics, so don’t be afraid to only talk about one thing in a reply. If I notice that we’re not going anywhere (such as too many topics at once reducing the quality of discussion, focusing endlessly on one topic, discussing something unrelated to this thread), then I may intervene. Please keep all discussions constructive and respectful

 

[Solawr]

yeah

1.
I believe setting up runs is often against the rules, but I've seen some cases where its been grandfathered into the run because "everyone does it"
some maps include Minecorp, Eternity, Mint's trials, and Soltice. I personally as a speedrunner never liked the idea of setups and think they should be reported and fixed, even if the creator hasn't logged on since Obama was president.
2.
Definitely not, you can yeroc on almost any map that has a tp in it, and in most cases it can skip the entire map. This is something almost everyone can agree on.

I do think that some people would like the idea of an any% style of a run where you can abuse yerocs to get a good time, and I strongly dislike this idea as I feel like it would just be more work and would make the average new speedrunner VERY confused on what the hell a yeroc% is, as well as preventing yeroc%'s in normal runs would be impossible if they remained simply for the any% run to exist.
3.
I think skip patching and map changes should be allowed if it 'fixes' something in the map, like a map escape or skip patch, but I think that they should inform a staff about the decision, as it may require a time wipe. I also believe that a skip should be fixed by the map maker ONLY IF THEY ARE ACTIVE. One such example being ace, where there have been many skips found on that map, but the creator is (from what I believe) inactive, so they just simply aren't being patched or assessed in any way.
4.
This is what I've been wanting to get to, currently from what I've seen from staff views, they are inclined to never allow any real form of skips. From what I've seen in the past, some staff also believe that if the skip is harder than the actual path, its allowed. I don't know how most people perceive this, but basically every map has some sort of timesave. some sort of thing you can do to skip one or two jumps, primarily in parkour maps. Also, most "harder" skips can be done easily by players who are better at parkour. So that begs the question, who should draw the line? When does a skip become too hard for what kind of player?
5.
This one is pretty simple imo, either wipe times completely if it makes the times impossible, or just let the players improve their times with the new mechanics. The slime changes were pretty severe, but nowadays basically every run that uses the new slime mechanics is optimized like it was prior to the change. However, when it comes to things like the soul sand change, I feel like difficulty of the map needs to be assessed as well. (Ex. Psyche last room, which was buffed tremendously by the soul sand changes) as well as time wipes (looking over this my end of world time needs to be removed, it uses old soul sand mechanics) ~ I think time wipes should be used more often as it never wipes the players completion, it just wipes their time.
6.
I'll be using this to talk about lagged times. Currently, there is a hand full of lagged times on the server committed by people who just, arent aware of lagged times. One recent example being sitting duck, where the player stated afterwards "that didn't feel very fast" (the player is a blue rank and is likely unaware of lagged times) ~ I feel like minr needs to put more trust into speedrunners who report these times, as yes we can't directly prove it, we can still tell nearly 90% of the time if it is lagged or cheated just based on the timesave.

another thing I want to mention is ping differences on maps that use a lot of doors or provide effects. Currently, maps that use a lot of doors (acropolis as an example) are impossible to beat on high ping, but on the flip side maps like chill out allow high ping players an advantage of getting the effect later (so they can sprint more thus shortening their time), and that creates the question for me, how should speedrunning these maps be assessed for high vs low ping players? should there just be maps where you can only beat it if you have certain ping? I understand speedrunning is a niche topic and thus this question seems irrelevant but even from my likely biased point of view, it really bums me out that I just can't speedrun a good portion of maps on the server due to this.

Also, if there is a definite answer on what skips are and arent allowed, I would be down to help find and patch skips on every map I've speedran.

 

[facecat1]

My general opinion boils down to two main things:

-Creator vision should come first. The creator is the one who made the map in the first place, they have something in mind when they make it. A lot or even most builders are meticulously planning every jump to contribute to the balance and experience, both for normal players and speedrunners, and even a relatively small skip can undermine that. IMO creators should always have the freedom to patch a skip if it messes up their vision in a way they're not fine with. I can say personally, as a creator, my issue with speedrunning skips almost never has to do with not wanting runners to use them, but more with not wanting non-runners to use them in their main experience of the map.

-If it is possible, it should be fair game, apart from universally banned exploits. It's impossible to make everyone happy on this topic. Skips will inevitably come up sometimes even with thorough testing. Either limiting creators' ability to fix things or resetting speedrunner times is going to be disappointing to someone on one side or the other. But utilizing whatever means possible to improve times has always been at the heart of speedrunning. IMO it is up to creators to get rid of any skips they don't want in a map (and board to help them with that). At the same time, I think it's on speedrunners who plan on using a skip to recognize and be fine with the fact that it may be patched later. It's the same as speedrunning any game that developers are still patching, it's something the community has always had to contend with.

Now to answer all points with this in mind:

1. I don't have a strong opinion either way. Allowing them feels more in line with my second point, though. But personally I feel like not allowing them is more in line with other speedruns where they have to be performed from a clean slate and solo.

2. I'd go with general consensus on this one. I really think then only reason to ban them is preserving the fun of speedruns where a yeroc% is still possible. I only think that should be a matter of rule enforcement if people seem to agree in general that allowing them is less fun than disallowing.

3. I think creators should allowed to change anything and everything in their map that they want, as long as they go through proper processes (noting them down in changelogs, getting board approval or temporarily pulling from FFA for big changes). The only exception should be situations where making major changes will cause a problem, such as if a map is in Hardcore.

4. I think the creator should aim to get rid of all skips that circumvent any part of their intended gameplay/experience. For me, this includes anything within FFA difficulty or that players might use on a normal run of map, intentionally or otherwise. This should continue after a map is published, as some skips are just inevitably going to be missed here and there. But once that's done, or if it won't be done, I think speedrunners should be allowed to use any skip that remains. I still think it's courtesy to let creators know of any skips even if they're small or difficult.

5. I think this should be handled the same way it is now. Times that can't be beaten should be removed. It sucks that sometimes someone might put hard work into a time and then have it cleared, but as Minecraft is a regularly updated game, it's just inevitable that that might happen. I think the alternative is worse, if competition on a map is effectively killed because no one can come close to the top times anymore.

6. Free response

 

[pingpong]

oh yay something to write something on
feel like an overall point is just make it clear, whatever it is just make it clear and enforce it
ideally look to end up with as little fun as possible.

1.
I might say this alot but if the map creator doesn't want their map "setup" then they should be able to go ahead and do whatever they want to fix it. As far as a serverwide rule, I believe that any sort of "grandfathering in" is not that great of a solution and that if you're grandfathering in setups then you don't have much foot to stand on by making them against the rules in other cases.
2.
lmao.
A yeroc% is 100% something that should be against the rules and explicitly against the rules. It's fairly reasonable to say that being able to turn a 15+ minute map into a sub 1 second map is completely insane.
3.
I feel as though too much grace is given to players who choose to speedrun maps. I think it is perfectly understandable for a map creator to wish to alter their map after someone has discovered something that if know before release, they would not have included in their map. If it needs to be explicit then it's clear that a map creator should not alter the intended gameplay of their map and having to notify staff about changes, although technically already a rule, would give peace of mind to those worried about creators doing that. In those cases where the map creator is inactive, I feel like it would just have to fall back into what board would require to be changed if they knew about it at the time such as a map escape, otherwise it would not be anyones place to alter the map.
4.
I think severity of skips is a funny term. A skip is something that I guess circumvents the intended gameplay which is almost entirely up to the map creator and I feel that if something is counted as a skip then it should fall under whatever the rule on skips is no matter what. A creator should and could want to remove all and any skips that they are aware of before the map is published, meaning that if one goes unnoticed I feel it should therefore make it allowed to use. A skip harder than the actual path is another term floated around and once again I don't see how the difficulty of a skip means much at all and it should still follow the same rules. With regards to the confusion about what sort of skip is allowed, I would say that having people report more of the skips they actually find and not be discouraged to do so is a good start, instead of just operating under some vague set of rules they have assumed to be true. Finally I would say speedrunners should be made well aware or just personally understand that if they use a skip that it could end up being patched regardless of how long they might spend trying to find it so that they are spared from any future disappointment
5.
I see nothing wrong with a good old time wipe. I'm not sure how to determine if someones time would now be "impossible" due to a change in the mechanics but I feel like thats a strange way to draw the line. I may have used a mechanic thats now different to get a 5th place time but my time is not impossible without it so it would remain, however without the mechanic I would have been slower personally so I benefit from the mechanic change over any future runners.
6.
I tried to think of something to discuss but decided against it

psa I'm not a speedrunner nor a map creator nor a staff member, this just an (old af) minecraft server and I used a few skips writing this.

 

[MaxLovesFrogs]

I don't have the knowledge or experience to give an informed opinion on most of these points, but I do very much want to touch on point 2, yeroc% skips - I am somewhat disappointed in how they are handled overall. They are not allowed in the rules, and as nons said in this post. Times that are found to have been achieved with yeroc% are not always removed though? Or perhaps that they are, but finding them is the difficult part? I'm not sure, but I will just make the assumption/statement that yeroc% times should always be removed if found, since they are explicity against the rules. This is more of a statement on more consistently following what the rules say rather than anything about yeroc% skips specifically.

Regarding yeroc% skips specifically, board either enforces a requirement or strongly suggests implementing yeroc skip protection when they are found, since adding the protection does not affect anything except the skip (harmless). However, it can be a hassle. It took me multiple hours of scripting to add yeroc skip protections for Odysseus, and while I am not complaining about the workload itself, I did find it frustrating that I had to add protection for something that's against the rules when other rule-breaking interactions exist and are not protected any more than just the idea of it being against the rules. Namely, greenies+ can fly to map locations and interact with scripts to give them progress in a map. There are a few maps that do include script protections against this, but for the overwhelming majority, there is nothing stopping players from doing this other than it being against the rules. (Don't do this, it's bannable, and also disrespectful). My point is, what's the difference between a rule like that, and a rule like yeroc%? And if there isn't much of one, why are yeroc% protections 'mandated' for mapmakers (this can be difficult to do for mapmakers who are just getting into scripts!) but other protections are not?

All this to say, I wish we had more clarified rules that existed outside of the tribal knowledge of players who have been here for a while.

 

[ilovenons]

I believe setting up runs is often against the rules, but I've seen some cases where its been grandfathered into the run because "everyone does it"
some maps include Minecorp, Eternity, Mint's trials, and Soltice. I personally as a speedrunner never liked the idea of setups and think they should be reported and fixed, even if the creator hasn't logged on since Obama was president.

I agree that if we decide on setups being disallowed, these maps should be fixed. However, there are so many maps that require fixing, so it would be a huge pain to go through this process. I know some people think that finding setups is fun (see the thread I linked in my main post), so I was curious if that sentiment was still prevalent in the community. There are a lot of issues with allowing setups, such as accidentally leaving finished puzzles for first time completers to find and map creators having a significant advantage in knowing what the optimal setup for their map is.

One thing we could do is leave it to the creator to flag their map with "setups" being allowed, which can be seen in /map info. This would be confusing for new players, however. Not to mention map creators still holding an advantage in knowing the optimal setups for their map, but I don't think that is a major issue.

2. Performing a yeroc% in a speedrun

To be honest, I only really included this topic in case we allow setups, since a yeroc% is also technically a "setup". I don't think yeroc% is very fun. However, if we allow setups, then we would have to be more specific in what is okay and what isn't. If we decide on abusing delayed teleports not being allowed, then is receiving an item through a delayed script also not allowed? And if not, what would the difference between that and dropping an item at the start of the map to “set up” the map be? I can think of a lot more examples.

I think skip patching and map changes should be allowed if it 'fixes' something in the map, like a map escape or skip patch, but I think that they should inform a staff about the decision, as it may require a time wipe.

I think this is fair. I also agree with what @facecat1 said about having to get board approval.

I also believe that a skip should be fixed by the map maker ONLY IF THEY ARE ACTIVE.

What does this mean? Do you mean that if you are inactive, you can't just simply log on and make changes to your map?

4.
This is what I've been wanting to get to, currently from what I've seen from staff views, they are inclined to never allow any real form of skips. From what I've seen in the past, some staff also believe that if the skip is harder than the actual path, its allowed. I don't know how most people perceive this, but basically every map has some sort of timesave. some sort of thing you can do to skip one or two jumps, primarily in parkour maps. Also, most "harder" skips can be done easily by players who are better at parkour. So that begs the question, who should draw the line? When does a skip become too hard for what kind of player?

I agree with what you said. I think it's incredibly hard to pinpoint an exact line that divides skips that should not be allowed, and skips that should.

I still think it's courtesy to let creators know of any skips even if they're small or difficult.

This would be nice, but there are so many timesaves in a speedrun that it would be a massive chore to list them all. When I used to speedrun, I found it annoying to have to ask if a skip was okay or not, so I just judged for myself if a skip is okay or not before messaging them. This is something that I could have improved on, but listing all of them can be a lot.

Finally I would say speedrunners should be made well aware or just personally understand that if they use a skip that it could end up being patched regardless of how long they might spend trying to find it so that they are spared from any future disappointment

I agree, and I think that speedrunners should be aware of the possibility of a skip being patched after they spent time using it if they did not message the creator. If they had messaged the creator, they would have avoided that situation to begin with.

5. What should Minr do if Minecraft changes a mechanic that alters a map’s top times?

I will throw a suggestion here that was suggested by @MOUTHWEST in the setup thread that I linked to. Their solution is to introduce versioning to maps. This way, the old times are still there, and it’s still possible to get top times. This feature might also be helpful if a creator decides to patch a skip and then only needs to change the version of the map. Speedrun score would still be lost, but perhaps some magic can be done to make it so that the max speedrun score achieved in all versions counts? Perhaps reduce the old speedrun score a little bit to make new versions still worth running. I'm not sure how realistic this is to implement, however.

However, when it comes to things like the soul sand change, I feel like difficulty of the map needs to be assessed as well. (Ex. Psyche last room, which was buffed tremendously by the soul sand changes) as well as time wipes (looking over this my end of world time needs to be removed, it uses old soul sand mechanics)

That is true, but how much more difficult does a run have to be for the times to be reset? One way could be to reset the leaderboard if the map goes up in a difficulty level, I suppose. As for end of world, do you think the entire leaderboard should have their times reset, or just the top x?

I don't have the knowledge or experience to give an informed opinion on most of these points, but I do very much want to touch on point 2, yeroc% skips - I am somewhat disappointed in how they are handled overall. They are not allowed in the rules, and as nons said in this post. Times that are found to have been achieved with yeroc% are not always removed though? Or perhaps that they are, but finding them is the difficult part? I'm not sure, but I will just make the assumption/statement that yeroc% times should always be removed if found, since they are explicity against the rules. This is more of a statement on more consistently following what the rules say rather than anything about yeroc% skips specifically.

Regarding yeroc% skips specifically, board either enforces a requirement or strongly suggests implementing yeroc skip protection when they are found, since adding the protection does not affect anything except the skip (harmless). However, it can be a hassle. It took me multiple hours of scripting to add yeroc skip protections for Odysseus, and while I am not complaining about the workload itself, I did find it frustrating that I had to add protection for something that's against the rules when other rule-breaking interactions exist and are not protected any more than just the idea of it being against the rules. Namely, greenies+ can fly to map locations and interact with scripts to give them progress in a map. There are a few maps that do include script protections against this, but for the overwhelming majority, there is nothing stopping players from doing this other than it being against the rules. (Don't do this, it's bannable, and also disrespectful). My point is, what's the difference between a rule like that, and a rule like yeroc%? And if there isn't much of one, why are yeroc% protections 'mandated' for mapmakers (this can be difficult to do for mapmakers who are just getting into scripts!) but other protections are not?

All this to say, I wish we had more clarified rules that existed outside of the tribal knowledge of players who have been here for a while.

You're right that the times using yeroc% should be removed. They kind of grandfathered in like the other setup maps, simply because other players used it first and it starts setting a precedent. We should have handled these maps better.
The part about having to fix yeroc% is something that you might want to bring up to board specifically. I can see how it can be frustrating. I'm guessing the reason board makes you fix them on board is so that there is a lower chance of whities abusing these exploits. It makes it incredibly easy for people to cheat times, unfortunately.

 

[ilovenons]

6.
I'll be using this to talk about lagged times. Currently, there is a hand full of lagged times on the server committed by people who just, arent aware of lagged times. One recent example being sitting duck, where the player stated afterwards "that didn't feel very fast" (the player is a blue rank and is likely unaware of lagged times) ~ I feel like minr needs to put more trust into speedrunners who report these times, as yes we can't directly prove it, we can still tell nearly 90% of the time if it is lagged or cheated just based on the timesave.

Forgot to reply to this, oops.
Perhaps this is something we can start doing. If a time is suspected to be lagged (or is obviously lagged), then we can send a /mail that the player has a week to reply to. If they don't reply, we can remove the time. This will probably be handled in a case-by-case basis (make a staff request or report the times on the forums using report player if you prefer staying anonymous, maybe?). This is just me brainstorming, not something staff will start doing right now.

another thing I want to mention is ping differences on maps that use a lot of doors or provide effects. Currently, maps that use a lot of doors (acropolis as an example) are impossible to beat on high ping, but on the flip side maps like chill out allow high ping players an advantage of getting the effect later (so they can sprint more thus shortening their time), and that creates the question for me, how should speedrunning these maps be assessed for high vs low ping players? should there just be maps where you can only beat it if you have certain ping? I understand speedrunning is a niche topic and thus this question seems irrelevant but even from my likely biased point of view, it really bums me out that I just can't speedrun a good portion of maps on the server due to this.

This is annoying, but I am not sure what we can do about this. If someone has a solution for this, post it here, but otherwise I feel like this is something that is just an unfortunate part of speedrunning on a server.

 

[alpacalypz]

can someone clarify what lagged times are? my assumption is that its when you hit the start sign and then there is a delay (lag) before your timer actually resets, so you can get, say, 10% of the way through a map before your timer even starts.

5) as for time wipes, as pingpong mentioned, introduction of a new mechanic doesnt affect top times exclusively. it seems to be when a new mechanic changes how fast a map can be completed, one of two things should happen: 1. every time is wiped, or 2. no times are wiped. moreover, whichever of these options is chosen, it should be mentioned explicitly in the server rules, and applied universally to all cases.

6)

feel like an overall point is just make it clear, whatever it is just make it clear and enforce it

hard agree with this. im not much of a speedrunner or map creator, but I am a player who is governed by the server rules, and by far my number one priority is that they be as clear and evenly applied as possible.

 

[pingpong]

oh one more thing, reminded by someone doing it again almost not even 5 minutes ago I don't think?
Speedrunning on day 1, it's a phrase merely passed around through players with plenty being aware of it not really being allowed but there being still the benefit of the doubt that it is not explicitly stated anywhere.
Personally I think that this spoken rule is very fair and makes sense for plenty of reasons, it just would help to be clarified and stated in a clear way within the server rules so everyone is expected to know and follow it.
This would reduce cases where people do it without knowing, do it while knowing, and where staff and players have to consistently go back and forth about it what feels like every time.

 

[gemuse]

can someone clarify what lagged times are? my assumption is that its when you hit the start sign and then there is a delay (lag) before your timer actually resets, so you can get, say, 10% of the way through a map before your timer even starts.

That's right. The important thing is inconsistency in the delay between the start and end signs. High ping players will recognise the delayed punch (or chat message) when they hit a start sign, but that doesn't mean their final time is always lagged, because the same delay applies to the end sign as well provided that their ping is roughly constant.

 

[KittyCatElite]

Yeah I didn't read any of the replies yet I'm just here to yap

1. Should setting up maps be allowed?

I think if a setup exists, you should be allowed to use it. It doesn't make sense to have people speedrun a map, but limit them from doing something that is a part of the map and allows them to go faster. If a setup is patched due to a creator's wishes, the times using it should be removed. They should probably still be reported in case the creator wants them patched. A lot of setups are extremely unfun, like festival, and I'd gladly have them removed, but until then they should be allowed.

2. Performing a yeroc% in a speedrun

Same answer as to the first question, except I wouldn't be opposed to allowing people other than creators to fix yerocs in maps, if that isn't already done. Yerocs are usually more like glitches than creative solutions in maps, so I think this would make sense.

3. To what extent should map creators be able to alter their map after it gets put in FFA?

I think creators should be allowed to alter their maps in a way that doesn't significantly alter the intended gameplay, such as fixing something in the aesthetics or patching an unintended skip. They shouldn't be allowed to change for example a full jump in a onejump, or a full transition in a rankup map. Any time a change is made, any of the top times that would become impossible to beat, or that benefitted from the previous version of the map, should be removed.

4. What severity or kind of skips should be allowed?

I think "skips that make a map easier and those that use map escapes should be reported to the map creator or staff" is enough. It's hard to quantify what would be a speedrunner skip and what wouldn't, and I don't think people would report the non-obvious cases. And speedrunning is competitive, so people will want to "abuse" unknown speedrunner skips to get top times, because this is how it's always been. If someone's time is clearly too fast for a map, you can always find the speedrunner skip yourself, which I would say is a part of speedrunning. As always, any top times benefitting from changes should be removed.

5. What should Minr do if Minecraft changes a mechanic that alters a map’s top times?

Always wipe impossible top times or ones that are significantly harder to beat now than before due to changes.

6. Free space!

I don't like the Day 1 rules, I don't pay enough attention to when maps get released to know what map released in the past 24 hours. If I can join a map and speedrun it on Day 1 by accident while being unaware I'm doing so, I don't want to hold anyone else to that standard. Unless a clear chat warning is added when joining a new map notifying the player that it's still Day 1, the rule shouldn't exist. I think the ruling should just be not to speedrun non-pk maps when other players are present, and if you fail to follow that, you should be warned to leave the map -> tempbanned for at least 24h if you don't listen.

I'm not sure what the rules say on this but any start sign lagging or abusing high ping to get better times should be disallowed. It should already be a gentleman's agreement to cancel any runs where you see start sign lag, but that should be an official rule if it isn't already. There are also maps like turning point, that to my knowledge abuse lag or ping to get sprint for a longer time at the start of a map, and this should definitely not be allowed.

 

[Alphaesia]

I agree that if we decide on setups being disallowed, these maps should be fixed. However, there are so many maps that require fixing, so it would be a huge pain to go through this process. I know some people think that finding setups is fun (see the thread I linked in my main post), so I was curious if that sentiment was still prevalent in the community. There are a lot of issues with allowing setups, such as accidentally leaving finished puzzles for first time completers to find and map creators having a significant advantage in knowing what the optimal setup for their map is.

One thing we could do is leave it to the creator to flag their map with "setups" being allowed, which can be seen in /map info. This would be confusing for new players, however. Not to mention map creators still holding an advantage in knowing the optimal setups for their map, but I don't think that is a major issue.

Map creators hate setups because they're bugs in their maps. Staff don't like setups because they create brittle and broken maps. New players don't like finding maps half setup because it degrades their gameplay experience. To these three groups, setups are seen as straight bugs and not speedrunning opportunities. These groups are likely to patch setups without the thought of speedrunning crossing their mind. Speedrunners love brittleness because it creates interesting puzzles to solve. (And while not all setups lead to interesting speedrun experiences, not all maps lead to interesting speedrun experiences anyway.) This is the core tension. For clarity, we want to fully resolve it one way or the other. However, I don't think not patching bugs in maps is a stable solution. People will ask for them to be patched anyway and people will patch them anyway. While it would be nice to have a v1.0.0 copy of maps for speedrunners to have their Glitch% runs in, that's not logistically feasible.

With regards to needing to fix many maps, this gets brought up every time speedrunning is discussed, and keeps getting brought up because people get confused by unpatched setups that people get grandfathered in. The solution is just to keep fixing them. Yes, there are a lot of setups that need to fix, but we've gotten dramatically better at fixing bugs over the years. yeroc% issues used to go undetected for years, now we catch and fix almost all of them immediately. Of course, there have been issues in the past with speedrunners of a map finding a setup then collectively deciding almost themselves that it is allowed, without ever actually reporting the setup to the mapmaker or staff. (This is possibly exacerbated by Staff in general being unwilling to punish people for concealing setups and just wiping the times.) But we can definitely fix setups over time if that's the path we go down.

oh one more thing, reminded by someone doing it again almost not even 5 minutes ago I don't think?
Speedrunning on day 1, it's a phrase merely passed around through players with plenty being aware of it not really being allowed but there being still the benefit of the doubt that it is not explicitly stated anywhere.
Personally I think that this spoken rule is very fair and makes sense for plenty of reasons, it just would help to be clarified and stated in a clear way within the server rules so everyone is expected to know and follow it.
This would reduce cases where people do it without knowing, do it while knowing, and where staff and players have to consistently go back and forth about it what feels like every time.

In our draft rewrite of the rules, this has been codified:

8. Don't speedrun maps when other players are present and it would affect their experience.

• Examples of ways it could affect their experience include:
  • Revealing information in mazes or puzzles (which would also be answer sharing).
  • Extending or retracting pistons in parkour.
  • Opening or closing doors that are non-trivial to open.
• Don't speedrun maps within 24 hours of their release if it is possible to affect other players like this, even if nobody else is currently in the map.

I'm not sure what the rules say on this but any start sign lagging or abusing high ping to get better times should be disallowed. It should already be a gentleman's agreement to cancel any runs where you see start sign lag, but that should be an official rule if it isn't already. There are also maps like turning point, that to my knowledge abuse lag or ping to get sprint for a longer time at the start of a map, and this should definitely not be allowed.

We should probably mention it, but not punish people for it unless they're doing it intentionally. It's pretty easy to do unintentionally if you're not aware that it's a thing. And while ignorance of the rules isn't a defence, you probably won't even realise it's happening unless you've trained yourself to notice.

 

[pingpong]

I'm not sure what the rules say on this but any start sign lagging or abusing high ping to get better times should be disallowed. It should already be a gentleman's agreement to cancel any runs where you see start sign lag, but that should be an official rule if it isn't already. There are also maps like turning point, that to my knowledge abuse lag or ping to get sprint for a longer time at the start of a map, and this should definitely not be allowed.

yessss those high ping players have had it too good too long with no regard for anything!!

 

[ManWithRaft]

Hello :3

1. Should setting up maps be allowed?
In a perfect world, there would be no setups and they would all be fixed, so I guess my answer is no? I agree with Alphaesia that the solution here is to slowly but surely work on reporting and fixing setups, this way the rule around it will be much much clearer with a straight up no.

2. Performing a yeroc% in a speedrun
A yeroc% should never be allowed in my opinion. It's one of those meta tricks that goes beyond the map and basically abuses the way the server works. They are never an intended feature and will always result in skipping gameplay. To me it's kind of the same as if you were to fly to a map in creative and drop enderpearls or an elytra, an exploit beyond the map that games the system.

3. To what extent should map creators be able to alter their map after it gets put in FFA?
It's their map, they should be able to alter it whenever they want. The changes would of course need to be re-approved by board if they are gameplay changes or major overhauls. If someone is changing a different jump in their map every week then that should probably be stopped.

4. What severity or kind of skips should be allowed?
The way that I would personally want to see this work is that the creator of a map gets to decide the gameplay. It's their map after all. So if they dislike specific skips/shortcuts they have the right to patch those.
So if you go by this idea, then in a perfect world where creators only leave skips in their maps that they are okay with, and in a world where all setups are fixed, then everything is fair game. This would make it so much easier to understand all the rules surrounding speedrunning too.

5. What should Minr do if Minecraft changes a mechanic that alters a map’s top times?
I think the only thing you can really do here is 'fix' the maps in a way that retains a similar difficulty and clear impossible to beat times. If a feature makes the run faster, then nothing needs to be done and people can simply improve their times.

6. Free space!
made you look

 

[The_Zakster]

Hi


1. Any setups in maps should be treated exactly the same as a "regular" skip. They should be reported to the map creator or an admin if they save a significant amount of time or allow you to escape the bounds of the map. Just like finding parkour skips in pure parkour maps, finding setups is a form of skill expression in speedrunning. Eliminating them completely would remove a form of skill expression in the speedrun. As some others have pointed out, this can lead to issues where a new player playing the map for the first time may encounter a scenario where a speedrunner has setup a puzzle and this can ruin their experience of the map. In my personal opinion, this is an unavoidable scenario (without completely eliminating a form of skill expression in the run). Either you prioritize the experience of the new player or reduce options for the speedrunner.
This is why I think speedrunners should be held responsible for making sure absolutely no one else is in the map while they are doing these setups and take care to notify the new player to potentially log out or wait at a certain spot while they disable/deactivate the setup. This is similar to the expectations on speedrunners if somebody is playing a maze and they are planning on speedrunning it. In the maze scenario, suppose a speedrunner is running the map and then a player who has made partial progress in the maze logs on and sees the speedrunner take the correct path. If the speedrunner notices the player when they logged on, they should obviously stop the run but in some cases they might not see the player. This is also a scenario which can ruin a new player's experience of the map and in my opinion is unavoidable. Some situations like this should be expected for puzzle maps and other non-pure parkour maps and doesn't necessarily mean we "throw the baby out with the bathwater" by removing or banning setups entirely.
To respond to the argument that setups are a bug or unintended feature in a map, this same argument can be applied for skips in pure parkour maps. They are often unintended by the creator and allows players to make the map easier or circumvent some other intention or plan of the map creator. Therefore, the same treatment that is given to skips should be given to setups. If the setup/ skip is small and relatively inconsequential, no expectation should be placed on the runner to report it. If it is a medium or large skip/ setup it should be reported to the map creator or an admin and it will be their decision whether or not to keep it.
Obviously the terms "easy skip/setup" or "medium/large skip/setup" are very vague/subjective and allow lots of room for interpretation. This is also unavoidable as the alternative would be to completely allow all skips/setups or disallow all of them which would be a much worse decision. If other players suspect that a time is using a skip/setup that saves a significant amount of time (medium/large skips) the runner in question should be expected to explain how they got the time to either the person asking or to an admin or the map creator who can serve as an intermediary if they do not wish to reveal their strategy. To add on to something Solawr said, I think special exceptions should be made to old maps whose creators are long inactive. I dont think it should be up to an admin whether or not certain skips in a map not made by them should be removed or kept. Obviously if there is a map escape that lets you beat a map in 2 seconds then an exception can be made to this exception, but overall, it should be up to the speedrunners to decide in that scenario.
To touch on something Max said about setups/yerocs, having to worry about all of these different scenarios creates a lot of work for the creator especially when it comes to setups. I think this is just an unfortunate byproduct as a creator is expected to make sure their map is polished and doesn't have massive map escapes in the form of parkour jumps, so I think the same standard should be held for setups/yerocs. Either they take care to remove these skips/setups/yerocs before the map is released or patch them after the fact if they believe certain ones are being used in their maps. There are lots of expecations on creators to make sure their map is presentable in many ways that are not related to skips so I don't believe it is an unfair burden even though it creates more work for them.

2. As discussed previously, yerocs should be treated the same as parkour skips or setups. If they are minimal, they should not be patched, if they are large and allow you to skip whole maps they should be disallowed. Some grey area in between is preferrable to outright bans or outright allowing them. Let me know if there are any scenarios I'm missing.

3. I am not a map creator so take this opinion with a grain of salt. Small changes like patches to skips should be fully allowed whereas changes to entire sections/ decoration of entire sections should be approved by the board.

4. This is an extremely subjective and vague area but my suggestions are that skips can be very vaguely categorized into three main types, easy, medium, hard. Further divisions in this will depend on how much time the skip in question saves.

Easy- Minimal Time Save: Should be Allowed
Easy- Medium Time Save: Should be reported and decided by the Creator
Easy- Large Time Save: Reported and Removed

Medium- Minimal Time Save: Should be Allowed
Medium- Medium Time Save: Should be Allowed
Medium- Large Time Save: Should be Reported and decided by the creator

Hard- Minimal Time Save: Should be Allowed
Hard- Medium Time Save: Should be Allowed
Hard- Large Time Save: Should be Reported and decided by the creator

Obviously these categories are still vague and should not be treated as gospel but in my opinion are good suggestions to the issue as some amount of grey area should always be expected in these kinds of scenarios. Let me know if there are any issues with this.

5. If the mechanic makes the map significantly easier, it should be up to the creator whether or not to change the map. Same for if it makes the speedrun faster, the creator should decide if this should be allowed. If the new mechanic makes a map significantly harder, then the creator should try to adjust the difficulty to its original level (as closely as you can) or remove all the top times from the speedrun. However, challenge and map completions should not be removed in this scenario unlike top speedruns. This is because whether or not another player has completed the map or a challenge has no bearing on your gameplay of the level, apart from the fact they had an easier time than you did. In the case of a speedrun, it directly affects your ability to beat the previous times so I think in those cases the times should be removed.

6. Filler, let me know if there are any glaring issues that I missed in my post or if you disagree :3.

Edit: To clarify something in the severity of skips section, I think creators should have the full right to remove any and all skips in their maps no matter how easy or hard they are or how much time they save. It is their map after all and any and all decisions should be left to them. The guidelines are more so for player behaviour expectations. For example, if a runner finds a skip which skips 5 jumps in a long map, they should have no obligation to report that skip even though the map creator has the full right to remove that skip if they so desire. This is to avoid scenarios where players are confused on whether they should report skips that save 1 or 2 jumps and creates lots of unnecessary and undue burdens on both players and creators/admins. On the other hand, if a player finds a skip or map escape which which skips a significant portion of the map, they should be obligated to report that skip and if they don't do that and use it for their own runs they should receive an official warning. Repeat offences of this nature should result in temp bans in my opinion.